C HAPTER T HIRTY -T WO
Two hours before the masquerade, Alaric walked into his dressing room like a man en route to the gallows and submitted himself to Belrok’s cruel and unusual form of torture with far less grace than he would have normally allotted to the peccadilloes of life at court. Belrok pored over Alaric for a damnable eternity, tutting and mumbling to himself in Nenavarene as he arranged the Night Emperor’s hair and applied brushes dipped in various—worryingly glittery —pigments to his face. How in the name of the gods did Talasyn put up with this almost every day?
A while later, Alaric heard his wife and her retinue enter the royal chambers as a gaggle of footsteps and feminine chatter reached his ears, muffled by the walls. He made to stand up, with a vague notion of saying hello to Talasyn, but Belrok let out what could only be called a shriek.
“Your Majesty, with all due respect, this is a very delicate undertaking! Please do not move!”
This outburst prompted a dark glare from Alaric, but Belrok only sniffed and resolutely continued with his work, snatching another brush from his complex array of tools. “In any case, it is better for you and the Lachis’ka to see each other once you’re both all done. To appreciate the full effect.”
Dusk had dimmed the sky when Belrok pronounced himself satisfied and held up a hand mirror for Alaric’s perusal. Alaric blinked at his reflection. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. True, he did look as though someone had dumped a bucket of glitter over his head, but most of it was concentrated in his hair, gold dust woven through elegantly tousled black locks. The glitter that had ended up on Alaric’s face was dusted along his temples and cheekbones and over the smokelike lines of his scar. His brows were flecked with tiny shards of gold, and midnight-hued kohl was smudged along the edges of his eyes. A strip of shimmering gold pigment ran down the middle of his lower lip.
“In traditional Dominion aesthetic, that is the mark of the consort, Emperor Alaric,” Belrok said, noting where the other man’s gaze had dropped to in the mirror. “It is meant to symbolize the Lachis’ka’s kiss. It shows that you have her favor.” The tailor cocked his head, bemused. “Astounding. His Majesty looks rather nice.”
“You’re merely congratulating yourself,” Alaric pointed out in the driest of tones.
“Oh, to be sure,” Belrok said loftily. “We must all take praise where we can get it. Otherwise, it would be a very sad life indeed.”
Fully costumed, Alaric waited in the bedchamber for Talasyn to emerge from her own dressing room. He elected to remain standing, because he was in danger of pitching Belrok right out the window if the tailor admonished him one more time to be careful not to sit on his cape. The mask that had been foisted on him was the inverse of his usual armor, covering his eyes, nose, and upper cheeks, but it was just as heavy, made of solid gold and weighed down with a plethora of jewels.
An attendant bustled in—one of the younger girls, wearing her best dress and a long-snouted mask with thin, shiny whiskers. “Everyone’s here!” she gushed in thickly accented Sailor’s Common. “It’s almost time, please do head downstairs when—” She did a double take once she got a closer view of Alaric. “Oh, His Majesty looks rather nice!”
She hastily dipped into a curtsy before scurrying off. Alaric scowled while Belrok seemed entirely too pleased with himself.
The door of Talasyn’s dressing room slid open and she stepped out. Alaric was robbed of words and breath. Jie and the Nenavarene couturier and her assistants were trailing behind, but he had eyes only for his wife. There was no possible way he could have looked at anyone else in that moment.
Talasyn’s chestnut hair was piled high atop her head and threaded through with delicate chains of mountain lilies wrought in gold, studded with tiny emeralds and diamonds—the same kind of gems that liberally embellished the ornate butterfly wings covering the upper half of her face. Her collarbones and shoulders had been left strikingly bare, but there was no need for necklaces, not when her costume bodice itself was one large piece of jewelry. It was nothing more than a skimpy band, made entirely of golden leaves, wrapped around her rib cage and barely covering the slight swell of her breasts. The leaves rested on graceful stems spaced apart to afford generous glimpses of her toned stomach before connecting to a lustrous green skirt, with a shorter hem in front, which showed shapely calves that ended in slim ankles surrounded by the diamonds dripping from the straps of her heeled shoes.
Alaric felt like his brain had turned to mush, not just because of the ethereal, sylvan silhouette that Talasyn cut, but also at the sight of so much skin . Skin that glowed, as if subtly lit from within. Practically speaking, he knew that they must have bathed her in goat’s milk and pearl dust to achieve such an effect, but Talasyn carried her own light, was made of it, and her radiance would envelop him …
And everyone else at the masquerade, whispered the inner voice that dwelt within the ugliest corners of his mind.
He’d seen her in revealing outfits before, but he’d never had to face the prospect of sharing that sight with a ballroom full of Dominion nobles until today. A tight, burning feeling grew in his chest as he thought of all the other men who would be staring at Talasyn from behind their masks, who would no doubt be lining up to kiss her hand and dance with her and put their hands on her body. Gods, he even wanted to kick Belrok out of the room just for looking at her.
“You’re not wearing that,” Alaric growled.
Talasyn started, narrowing her eyes at him from within the gilded confines of her mask. “ What did you say?”
Jie and the other women moved fast—they grabbed Belrok and fled out the door. Once Alaric and Talasyn were alone, his hands balled into fists. “You heard me.”
“Then allow me to rephrase.” Talasyn placed her own hands on her hips—the universal sign, Alaric thought sardonically, that someone’s husband was in deep trouble. “What makes you think that you have any right to dictate what I wear?”
“It’s not that,” Alaric said, but he didn’t know how to explain that things were different now, that he felt different, that he didn’t want anyone else to even think of doing the things that she’d let him do to her.
“So what is it?” When he didn’t immediately respond, Talasyn pursed her lips and continued, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “I sincerely regret that my costume doesn’t meet your standards, but it’s rather too late to change into anything else.”
“You have entire wardrobes full of dresses,” Alaric shot back. “Surely there’s one that’s”—floundering for the right words, feeling put on the spot, he snatched the first word that came to mind and knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment he said it—“less obscene.”
A vein throbbed in his wife’s forehead. “I could march out there naked if I wanted to—”
“Please don’t,” he said, with feeling.
“—and no one would be able to stop me, least of all you ,” Talasyn snarled. “Now, we’re already running late, so you can escort me downstairs, or you can stay here and rot! I don’t care either way!”
She stomped out of the room, wrenching the door open to a chorus of startled cries from Jie and Belrok and all the other Nenavarene who had been pressed up against it, eavesdropping.
Alaric was rarely one for crude language, but today he cursed under his breath as he hurried after her. It was going to be a long night.
What is the matter with him?
Talasyn fumed all the way out of the royal wing and down the staircase to the second level of the castle. She and Alaric ducked into the ballroom’s antechamber, where they were supposed to wait for the lights to dim before slipping into the crowd. Unlike other celebrations, there would be no grand entrance for any of the royal family, in order to preserve the illusion of a masquerade—the illusion that the Nenavarene would somehow fail to immediately recognize the Zahiyalachis, her heir, the Night Emperor, and the prince, just because their eyes and noses were covered. It was all a bit silly, but then again, the Dominion court thrived on artifices such as this.
Urduja and Elagbi had gone on ahead. In the quiet solace of the antechamber, where it was just Alaric and Talasyn, she could practically feel him locked in some fierce internal battle with himself. She attempted to pay him no mind, but as always, he proved difficult to ignore.
She tried to see it from his point of view. She really did. Continental fashion required more layers, more parts covered up, owing to the climate. It therefore wasn’t too outlandish that Alaric would be scandalized by Nenavarene attire, although she felt that this issue really should have cropped up much sooner.
But Talasyn’s attempt to be understanding failed. All she felt was annoyance whenever she glanced at her husband. And what a pity it was, considering how he looked. Her heart had skipped a beat when she first saw him in costume earlier. Jutting out from the sides of Alaric’s mask, slightly above the eye-holes, was a pair of golden antlers, kingly and resplendent. His crisply tailored tunic was the same deep, iridescent green as her skirt, cinched at the waist with a belt of gold silk that matched the trim on the high collar and wide cuffs. Embroidered on the front of the tunic, in shimmering gold thread, was a stylized tree pattern, the slender trunk slanting up the right half of his rib cage, the bare branches fanning outward to streak across his chest in burnished rays. Belrok appeared to have taken pity on Alaric in constructing his trousers, which were simple in comparison—just plain black silk of various weights—but his formal boots were a dark mulberry hue, as was the cape that flowed from his wide shoulders.
The colors were striking against his pale skin and sable hair. And Talasyn had rather liked the poetry of being the butterfly to his stag—but then he’d opened his fat mouth.
The opaque burgundy curtains that hung at the threshold of the antechamber, separating it from the ballroom, were eventually drawn aside by an attendant dressed like a beetle. Knowing that they had to keep up appearances, Talasyn grabbed Alaric’s arm without a word, shoving her hand into the crook of his elbow. He scowled, before flattening his mouth out into a—a smaller scowl.
Iantas’s dusty, little-used ballroom had been completely transformed. The air was sweet with the perfume of myriad rose-and-hibiscus arrangements, mounted on marble pedestals. The celestial patterns splashed over the hangings and tablecloths gave off a faint sparkle in the muted light shed by chandeliers of crystal and bronze. And the crowd itself was a thing of wonder, a sea of bejeweled masks and fantastical costumes. Some were helping themselves to the smorgasbord of finger foods and fine wines, others were conversing merrily in little groups, and others still were gliding with their partners over the marble dance floor to the airy strains of a string orchestra.
As they made their way through the glitzy throng, Talasyn could only hope that she and Alaric were doing a capable enough job pretending to tolerate each other.
They went over to Queen Urduja, who wasn’t too difficult to spot: she wore a silver dragon mask and a scale-pattern dress with an impressively frilled collar. The hummingbird-masked noblewoman she was talking to paled in comparison.
The Zahiya-lachis greeted Talasyn first, then studied Alaric over the rim of her champagne flute. “Emperor. Welcome back to the land of the living.”
“Apologies for missing council, Harlikaan,” Alaric tersely replied. “Holding back the Void Sever was more taxing than I had anticipated.”
“Completely understandable,” said Urduja. “I claim no knowledge of aethermancy and can’t even imagine.” She inclined her head toward the woman in the hummingbird mask, finally including her in the conversation. “You remember Daya Musal.”
“Of course.”
Alaric’s tone was so carefully blank because, Talasyn realized, he did not in fact remember the noble who had led the charge in giving him a hard time at the engagement banquet. She jumped in, eager to avoid an awkward situation. “How good that the two of you can become acquainted in happier circumstances! Let us hope, shall we, Daya Musal, that there will be no duels this evening?”
Ralya Musal let out a melodious laugh, her brown eyes glinting over her mask’s needle-sharp bronze beak. “No one would have the audacity to duel the man who helped save Nenavar. Not even Lord Surakwel—and I’d wager he is hardly aching for another go after being so soundly trounced by His Majesty last time!”
You’d lose that bet, my lady, Talasyn thought.
As Ralya chattered away at Alaric, Queen Urduja took the opportunity to lean in closer to Talasyn and issue a whispered command in the Dominion tongue. “See to it that Mantes and His Majesty steer well clear of each other.”
“If the former even shows up tonight,” Talasyn mumbled.
“Oh, he will.” Urduja took another sip of champagne. “That boy positively lives to inconvenience me.”
How long, Alaric asked himself an interminable while later, have I been standing in this room?
Surely longer than it had felt casting the eclipse sphere against the Void Sever. Surely longer than Bakun had been sleeping beneath the bones of the world.
More and more nobles were coming up to him, talking to him and then talking with one another . Etiquette dictated that everyone, even those who splintered off into their own little groups nearby, use Sailor’s Common, so that Alaric could participate whenever he wanted to. And he had to participate, or he would waste the Dominion’s hard-earned goodwill. The talking never stopped.
To make matters worse, Talasyn had been whisked off to the dance floor some time ago and she had yet to return, as she was busy going through one eager partner after another.
“Not only did the Lachis’ka stop the Voidfell, but she has also pulled off quite a splendid party,” remarked one of the nobles. “Her Grace is a woman of many talents, it seems.”
Alaric tore his gaze from Talasyn and her dance partner to glare at the man who had spoken. Or the boy , really. He looked to be in his early twenties, with lips nestled between the razor-sharp fangs of a bat’s mask and a teardrop-shaped peridot hanging from one ear. Alaric had no idea who he was, but he swiftly came to the conclusion that he loathed this person.
Alaric loathed the man Talasyn was dancing with, too, the pompous frog-masked noble who’d had the gall to just—just go up to her and request a waltz —when she had obviously just finished dancing and any decent person would have let her rest for a while. He also loathed the nearby trio of dandies who were making no secret of their admiration, commenting on the excellent sense of rhythm of his wife and the fine figure she cut over the marble tiles.
“I profess myself rather envious of Lord Yaltik,” one of them said. “I do hope Her Grace will spare me a dance as well.”
“She already smiled at you at the last formal dinner,” his friend protested. “Let us have a turn—”
The third member of the group was the one who noticed that Alaric was frowning at them. He nudged his companions, and they all smiled politely and bowed in sync. Then they resumed their conversation.
Alaric tried his best to not feel insulted beyond belief, but it was hard going.
Prince Elagbi wandered nearer, lifting his glass in what to all outward appearances was a cheerful toast, but the words he spoke close to Alaric’s ear were serious. “I realize that things are different on the Continent, Your Majesty. Here, it is expected for men to fawn over the ladies at these gatherings. It’s simply another way to pass the time, and the women take it as their due.”
Alaric was glad for the stag’s mask hiding the flush of his cheeks. Was he being so transparent?
Elagbi flashed a wry grin. “That scowl speaks volumes when it’s aimed at all the young lords, Emperor Alaric.”
Taking heed of Elagbi’s warning, Alaric attempted to relax the line of his mouth after the prince went off to mingle with more festive partygoers. To distract himself, he turned his attention to Urduja—just in time to see her stride onto the dance floor with an elderly rajan in a boar costume. There was a subtle change in atmosphere as the Nenavarene started whispering among themselves behind lace fans and gloved hands.
Lueve Rasmey promptly filled in Alaric. She’d been gossiping with him all night—or, to be more accurate, gossiping at him. He attributed the daya’s chattiness only to her relief that they hadn’t all died. “That is Rajan Birungkil of the Mist Terraces. He was a favorite of Queen Urduja’s back in the day.”
Alaric froze. “A favorite,” he said, before he could think better of it. He knew what that actually meant in court parlance. One had a spouse, and then one had a favorite .
Lueve shot him a look of vague reproach. “The Zahiyalachis was young once, Your Majesty.”
That wasn’t the reason for his discomfiture. Despite those pretty vows that he and Talasyn had sworn to each other at the dragon altar, apparently marriage was as sacred here as it was in Kesath—which was to say, not at all.
Lueve continued defending her sovereign from what she clearly thought was Alaric’s prudishness, with the breezy affectations that came so naturally to all the Dominion nobles. “I’m sure I have no idea how it is in Kesath, but it’s par for the course here, Emperor Alaric. Married people still need to form strategic alliances, after all. And just like marriage, it’s simply another way to maneuver in the political landscape …”
Alaric tuned out Lueve, and his gaze darted to Talasyn in something not dissimilar to panic. She’d gone through two new partners since the frog-masked lord, and more than a few noblemen, waiting for their turn, were gathered at the edge of the dance floor.
Not wasting time excusing himself, Alaric walked away from Lueve, setting a brisk pace for the dance floor. He had some faint idea of cutting in. It might be a bit of a social gaffe, but surely he was well within his rights, surely a husband could rescue his wife from all these lechers who wanted to use her for political gain.
Isn’t that what you were doing when you married her? queried his nasty inner voice, which he pushed to the back of his mind, but not before it left a sour taste in his mouth.
Before Alaric could reach her, Talasyn switched partners again, her old one having deposited her into the waiting arms of a shaggy-haired noble wearing an eagle mask and a feather-flecked brown-and-gold costume that showed off his sinewy frame.
Surakwel Mantes.
It was telling that all of the chatter rippling around Alaric was conducted in the Dominion tongue rather than Sailor’s Common, even though he was in the vicinity. The Nenavarene knew when to be polite and when to be discreet. But their bouts of quietly suggestive laughter, the intrigued tone of their remarks, needed no translation.
Surakwel was holding Talasyn closer than was strictly necessary, and she was leaning in, too, the two of them murmuring to each other as they danced. A sickening blend of rage and despair welled up inside Alaric until he could barely see straight. Perhaps he should have seen this coming the night Talasyn leapt in front of the Shadowgate for Surakwel and referred to him by his given name. Perhaps it had only been a matter of time since then.
The lights in the ballroom were too bright all of a sudden, and the noise of the crowd almost deafening. Alaric balled his hands into fists to stop the tremors that shot through his fingers, and before he could allow himself to think twice, he resumed a determined path toward his wife. His.